There’s another problem with passwords which deserves its own post: what do you do when you forget one? It’s bound to happen, right? With so many passwords floating around in our heads, we inevitably forget one entirely or forget which password goes with which account. Sites can’t just tell you to get lost when you … [Read more…]
We’re used to computers zapping data back and forth with (mostly) perfect integrity. When you send a email, there’s no doubt that it will reach your intended recipient with all your crafty sentences completely intact. But!, even though your computers are good at transferring the information without loosing any, your recipient probably isn’t. Humans don’t … [Read more…]
I remember my first lesson on how to write a letter: how to address an envelope, the rigid explanation of formatting differences between business and personal, the impressive-sounding terms for the parts of a letter (the salutation, the complimentary closing, the postscript). It was in elementary school language arts class. We wrote letters and the … [Read more…]
It’s hard to come up with a decent name for your web startup. Believe me, we spent ages brainstorming, arguing, deciding everything we brainstormed was crap, and brainstorming some more before we came up with a name for the web startup that I was very briefly involved in. Whatever name we ended up with must … [Read more…]
OK, so I’ve blogged previously about how much email at Oxford sucks. But, as I alluded to, and as commented by our friendly neighborhood Oxford-IT-guy (thanks for reading, BTW), Oxford University Computing Services has a plan! The call it the Groupware for the University Project, or just groupware. Groupware is software designed to help groups … [Read more…]
I’m a student at the University of Oxford, and as is standard practice, they provide a email system for staff and students. It’s called Herald, and I assume it’s a home-grown email server that has evolved from code written in the 1980s. It’s a piece of crap. I kid, I kid! Admittedly, that’s probably dropping … [Read more…]
Sure, email is an easy way to send important information out to a large number of people. It’s almost too easy, and many people’s definition of “important” borders on ridiculous. The marginal cost in computing resources and effort to reach additional people is so tiny, it can be neglected in any reasonably sized organization. In … [Read more…]